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A day after Gideon wins the Shack and they all have to move in with Soos and his grandma, Dipper sticks around after dinner.
He walks in and out of the kitchen where Stan's doing the dishes (because some things he learned as a kid actually stuck around) maybe a dozen times, looking more and more constipated each time he comes back in and sees Stan still rinsing at the sink.
Stan's never been good with patience, and the way the kid is staring intensely at his back gives him the creeps. He turns around just as Dipper hits number thirteen.
"What's with you, kid?" He asks with a raise of an eyebrow.
The boy stops in his tracks, his face paling rapidly. He looks at Stan for a long moment, jaw working to no avail. It's clear he's trying to say something that's impossibly hard for him to get out.
"...Did Soos clog the toilet again?"
Dipper stares. "What? I mean, no, ew!"
"Uh huh." Stan puts down the plate in his hands. "Well, you've got something on your mind, it looks like."
The kid looks surprised, as if his anxious scrunched up face hadn't been plain to see.
Stan sighs. "Whatever ya wanna ask, might as well throw it out now."
If he has to be honest - which he tries to never be - he thinks he knows where this is going.
He's been pretending he doesn't see the looks Mabel shoots Dipper and vice versa, whenever the whole "living with Soos" thing hits yet another snag, like when dinner was a pack of cold corn tortillas. It's fine, he gets it. They never signed up for this, not getting kicked out of the Shack, or losing to Gideon, or - everything that Stan has - had - been doing down in the basement.
(Well. He doesn't have money for pizza, but he has just enough for bus tickets. That, at least, he's made sure of.)
"i know your secret, Grunkle Stan," Dipper says resolutely. There's an uncharacteristic steeliness in his eyes.
"I know you're the Author of the Journals."
For a moment, he can't make sense of the words.
Stan's not an author, not of anything except maybe those terrible adventure comics he had thought up and (tried) to draw out back when he was a kid. Definitely not one that warranted that kind of, uh. Dramatic inflection.
And journals... well, there's just one that comes to mind, and there's no way the kid knows anything about the musty old book Stan has obsessed over for three decades.
(It hits suddenly that it must still be down there in the basement of the Shack, sandwiched between two physics books he had stolen from a library in Portland.
There's a sharp pang of guilt that comes with the realization. That had been all he had left of his brother, and he had managed to lose that too.)
"I have no idea what you're talkin' about, kid." Stan says, keeping his voice as steady as he can.
"I wasn't sure at first because you don't have six fingers," Dipper blurts out, and - Stan's mind goes blank. He sees his lips keep on moving, and the kid's gotta be saying something but he can barely hear anything at all over the loud ringing in his ears.
"- but you had the same nose and the same chin, and I thought maybe it was just a coincidence until we saw your memories and -"
"Six fingers?" Stan repeats, voice hoarse. Then he blinks. "Hang on, what's that about seeing my -"
"I know it's you," Dipper declares, with a certainty that makes Stan uncomfortable. "When I was in your mind, I saw you writing in the first journal. And - you were building something huge, down in the basement! You pretend like you're just a gross old man who doesn't know anything about this town, but you know more than anyone else!"
He stares at his nephew for a long, speechless moment. His head hurts.
"...Alright," Stan says finally, fighting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Okay."
He needs a stiff drink and to figure out what exactly what was going on with his life, and neither of those things sound particularly likely right now.
"...Kid, you think you can start from the beginning?"
Dipper blinks. "Uh, yeah," he says, as if he hadn't been expecting that all, like he hadn't even given that a thought before barging in and shouting out Stan's darkest secrets for all to hear.
Knowing the kid, he probably hadn't - and didn't that remind him of someone.
"So. Uh. " Stan doesn't know how to have this conversation. He's not even too sure what this conversation is. "...Author of the journals?"
"That's what I've been calling you," Dipper explains, and barrels on before Stan can correct him. "Ever since I found your journal in the forest. I didn't - I wasn't sure who you were, because the picture inside looked like you a little but I couldn't be sure because -"
He looks a bit embarrassed. "Because -"
"I get it, kid," Stan sighs. "I'm old."
"Because you had six fingers in it!" Dipper says frantically, and goes a bit quiet. "And - yeah, because you look... a lot different now..."
Six fingers. He can't help but stare.
Because how many journals were laying around out here that belonged to someone with six fingers?
(He really should've figured there were more. His brother wasn't - isn't the kind of person who'd stop at one of anything.)
Then something clicks, and it takes everything he's got not to get down on his knees, grab the kid by the shoulders, and beg.
"You said you found one of those journals," Stan says slowly, trying to keep the desperate hope from his voice. "You, uh... don't happen to have that on you now?"
But Dipper shakes his head. "Gideon took it," he says, a sheepish expression on his face, and Stan sags. "He's been looking for it for ages because he has the second one too, and he's been using the magic in it for all kinds of evil stuff."
He jerks his head back up. "...Second?" Stan repeats, voice rough.
But that wasn't - no, wait, hang on.
"Kid, which one did you have?"
His nephew holds up three fingers, a look of vague confusion bright on his face, and for a moment, he can't find the words to speak.
Because - if there had been three journals this whole time, it meant that that he had been working off a third of the plans for thirty years. It meant that fixing the portal wasn't impossible, it had only felt impossible because for this particular puzzle he had only been looking at a portion of the picture on the box.
It meant that, after all these years, Stan could finally bring his brother home.
All he had to do now was win the Shack back from that megalomaniac devil child Gideon, and swipe all the journals along the way. Even though the little monster had the whole town and magic powers on his side. Somehow.
Great.
The defeat must show on his face because Dipper says, with a certainty in his voice that Stan does not feel, "But it's going to be okay, because now you don't have to pretend anymore!"
"Uh."
"I've been using the Journal all summer long to get me and Mabel out of trouble," the boy says passionately. He pauses, expression transforming into a wince. "...And in a lot of trouble too, I guess. But mostly out."
Stan stares. "That doesn't really make me feel better, kid."
"My point is, Grunkle Stan," Dipper continues determinedly, "I was really freaked out at first when everything with Gideon happened. I didn't know how to fix things without the Journal. I was relying on it this whole summer, and suddenly it was gone."
"But now I have something better," he says as he looks at Stan, eyes shining in a way that terrified him for reasons he really didn't want to think about.
Stan grimaces, hard. "Look, kid, there's something ya really gotta know -"
"I know you've been hiding everything for years and years, Grunkle Stan, but you don't have to anymore. Mabel and I, we can help," Dipper rambles. "We won't let you down! We're super responsible and we've learned so much about investigating the weirdness in this town in just a month -"
"You're twelve."
"Almost thirteen!"
Stan gives him a long, hard Look.
"The point is, Grunkle Stan," the boy says again, determination almost palpable in his voice. Honestly, if this was any other situation, Stan would've have been pretty damn impressed. Dipper had come a long, long way from the wimp who let Stan boss him around the Shack. "Mabel and I can't beat Gideon alone. But we could if we had the Author."
He winces. "I don't wanna burst your bubble here, but -"
"We need you, Grunkle Stan," Dipper pleads. "You've been dealing with the supernatural for years and years, and you know so much than we do. More than Gideon, even! And..."
Something passes over his face, and for a long moment the kid goes quiet.
"I... I didn't think I would ever meet the Author," he says at last. "I mean... even just knowing there's someone out there who's grown-up and cool that people didn't expect big things from, before. Who liked all the stuff that everyone else calls creepy or weird. Who... also didn't fit in most of the time."
"I've never had that before," Dipper tells him earnestly. "But - but now I do, and he's my great-uncle." He hesitates, a helpless grin spreading across his face. "He's you. And Grunkle Stan, I have so many questions."
Hero worship shines in his eyes in a way that was almost painful to look at. Stan's mouth goes dry.
Suddenly it's very hard to think.
"Kid, I..."
Contrary to popular belief, Stan Pines did have a little bit of what people liked to call 'common sense.' Every bit of it is screaming at him to tell the truth right now, to explain for the nth time in his life that he wasn't who people were looking for, who people wanted to see. Explain, again, that he wasn't - couldn't be Ford.
Hate to burst your bubble, kid, but I'm not the Author. I'm just his twin brother who pushed him into an interdimensional portal and stole his whole identity over the past thirty years.
Stan sees it as clear as day. If he told Dipper the truth, the kid would hate him - which, he told himself without believing it, he was perfectly alright with. What was adding one more to the crowd?
But if the kids knew Ford was on the other side of the portal, they would insist on helping him get his brother back. They were kids, they still believed in happy endings, they didn't have those thirty years of disillusionment and slow defeat. And when they couldn't get the Shack back, when they couldn't beat Gideon, when they couldn't fix the portal... that would be their first experience with failure.
With losing.
He... didn't want that. Not for them. He knew he was going to let everyone down eventually, he doesn't want to see it happen here.
...He's been pretending to be his brother for thirty years, what difference did another few minutes make?
"Alright, so I wrote those Journals," he says gruffly, not meeting Dipper's eyes. "You got me."
"But," Stan says, before the surprise can blossom to joy in the kid's eyes, "that's not who I am anymore."
Dipper's expression freezes on his face. "Wait, what?" He says, caught somewhere between disbelief and confusion. "Grunkle Stan -"
"Kid... you want to help?" Stan says slowly. "Get on the bus tomorrow, and go home. Stop looking into this stuff. Your life would be better off without all this weirdness. Trust me."
The boy laughs, a bit awkwardly. "I - I don't understand -"
"Go home, Dipper."
Betrayal flashes across Dipper's face, raw and hot. "You're giving up," he accuses. "But - you're the Author, you can't just give up -"
"Not anymore. Look, kid. Dipper. I'm telling you this as the Author. Probing too deep into this stuff gets you hurt. It's dangerous. And... there isn't a happy ending, not here, not most of the time. Things don't work out."
Stan hangs his head, tries not to meet the kid's stare. "...Then I guess I'm not the person you're looking for. Not anymore."
The look in Dipper's eyes then - he can't describe it. It haunts him.
It haunts him all the way to the bus stop, when the kids get onboard quietly and defeated.
He stares at their backs, dull smudges of color through the blurry bus window until he can't make them out anymore.
They beat Gideon.
Well, more like, the kids had beat Gideon, and Stan had stepped in near the end there to give a helping hand. Even less than that, maybe a helping two fingers, really. Just enough to pluck the little monster's listening device from his lapel and show the whole town exactly how Gideon was working his magic.
What he keeps telling himself is, he should've known. That of course the kids wouldn't quietly ride the bus back home, that of course they would have gotten involved in this whole mess anyways.
That of course they would end up winning.
Things are good, better than they've been in a long while. He's got the Shack back. The kids are the heroes of the town. Stan can stand to look at himself in the mirror again, most days.
(And if Stan had spotted a certain book in the items confiscated from Gideon, had taken the opportunity to exercise some old skills and nick it without anyone else noticing - well, that wasn't anyone's business but his own.)
Except, Dipper hasn't talked to him. He hasn't said a word to him since - then.
Stan tells himself it's not guilt that reaches in and twists his guts with its cold fingers, that it's not regret clogging up in the base of his chest that he wants to claw out with rough-bitten nails.
He had made the best decision he could. Sure, he had lied, but Stan Pines has lied for much worse reasons than this. It was for the kid's own good, and - it would have worked, alright? If that brat Gideon hadn't thrown that giant robot tantrum and dragged the kids back. It would have worked.
Because sure, Dipper had been pretty damn hurt, but it was a kind of hurt that he would have gotten over in the long run. A kind of hurt that would have made him feel bad, but it wouldn't have killed him. Wouldn't have gotten him pushed through some science experiment of a portal and left to rot for thirty years.
But. Stan can't help but remember the look on Dipper's face, in the end. He hates that there had been no real anger, no surprise. Just a grim sort of acceptance.
...It didn't matter. Not right now.
If Ford was never coming back, then better Dipper thought the Author had let him down than to know Stan had killed him.
If he was, then this could wait.
For his brother, everything could.